wendigones

again sorry this took so long

i had unfortunately deleted my original reddit post and could not find that. a lot of my interaction w this person was just through comments on my draft on ao3 which also, unfortunately, got erased before publishing. im sorry that so much of the proof is just of the transaction but that was documented well enough i guess. and im sorry for most of the discord chats not having anything riveting. we mostly just checked in there and had set up the initial base line on discord during the first day i talked with them. most of our conversation on discord just went like it did shown on the 4/18 date, and there are probably ~10 more screenshots similar to that one that i could include, but i didn’t include them for the sake of not cluttering up this post with repetitive screenshots that don’t contribute anything more. i did want to make sure to show my first interactions with them (4/10) and last interactions (4/27.)

i don’t know what else to include that can help legitimize my claim besides what i’ve shown. like i said, there was still much of that conversation with the editor that i did not include. while it’s not any new info besides us back and forthing edits, if showing the full conversation would help i will post it from the top if needed. if there’s anything else i can post as well please please comment/anon/ DM about it so i can do the most that i can for this situation.

i feel i should also specify the whole part of me giving them access to my account. still, this was only my 3rd time ever interacting with someone for beta work, so i had/ still have 0 idea if that request is uncommon. i personally did not have an issue with sharing my login at the time knowing they would be getting paid by me afterwards, which was something i figured gave incentive not to mess with anything since doing so would result in them not being paid. i’ve done similar sharing of login info through services like account piloting on online games, which was similar in the sense i trusted giving a person my login knowing they had the collateral of payment to lose if they abused any of the access. again, with having that kind of prior experience i felt comfortable exchanging my login with that person. (!! if this is common in beta-ing please ignore. i just thought i should specify in the case that it’s not and wanted to address any red flags it could give anyone.)

i want to state again that i do NOT use AI. i do not use AI, i do not support AI, and i will never do either of those. i did not work with this person again after “the space between,” so there has been no overlap of any of their edits in any work after 4/27. i do not use AI in any of my works, and “the space between” was no exception of that when i was writing. i did not use any AI while creating that work, and what the claude skin detected was AI i did not even know was edited in until i was made aware of it yesterday. NONE of what was used in “the space between” was to my knowledge AT ALL.

i have never been this invested in writing for a fandom ever which is why ive been doing as much writing as i can. im trying my hardest to do whatever i can to help anyone understand my side here, because i do not want this to stop me from writing. i’ve been writing so much because i’ve loved writing for this fandom and i’ve become so invested in my work and poured hours and hours and hours into everything i’ve written. the time and investment i had poured into “the space between” was just as much as any of my other work, which is why i’m so sick and heartbroken over this whole ordeal. i completely understand if people are still suspicious moving forward after this, but i also really do wish it wouldn’t change peoples views on what i’ve written and what i will keep writing. i still have so many drafts and my ongoing longfic and upcoming midfic ive been investing hours into and i want to post.

i’m not sure what to do about “the space between” after this. i feel so upset knowing whats happened, even though i know everything i wrote was written by ME. i still have my full google doc that i had written my whole draft on, and it’s even more frustrating knowing that part of what was posted went against my morals and included AI amongst my own words. it’s even more-so frustrating when i was looking at my published work and doc side by side and saw very minor changes in the last few chapters between the two, despite it being flagged for AI. that all just makes me think my work was literally being fed into AI, then repasted right back in?? i don’t know if i should delete it, edit the last few chapters, or what i should do with it.

i have not had any full editor/reader/beta since my interaction with this person (besides very minor doc-skimming/recs) because of that, i’ve had multiple instances of leaving my notes/doubling dialogue from moving things around/etc that i completely missed before posting and i want to address while i’m here as well because i don’t want suspicions further risen from anything else. any instance of out of place lines/bolding are my notes that i have missed and did not edit out. like i mentioned in my previous post, that is how i include my own notes to myself to come back an edit. that’s also the same type of notes i used at the time to communicate with my editor. any instances of that being in a fic is my OWN writing. i’m only stating this because i know there have been a few times i forgot to edit them out until i reread after publishing, and know at least some people may have saw it when reading and raised an eyebrow. i know that especially now, any recollection of that may look even worse. again, moving forward without an editor, there will still be times i miss them and i do not want to give any more suspicions.

i don’t think there’s anything else that i can say, but i want to keep writing. i want to do everything in my power so i can keep writing without anyone having to discredit what i put out as written by anything other than a human. again, if there’s anything i can post or clear up or answer please let me know. i have my documents for all my work with version histories. most of those documents don’t get cleaned out/still have notes that get removed until im in the editing box to publish but may have snuck their way into publishing. please please please ask me anything about any of this. if i have to find a way to record my writing sessions to post, i will do that if that means i can keep writing. i’ve build such an intense passion for writing here, and i do not want to have to put an end to it because of this.

i’d like to acknowledge the AI proof on “the space between” as soon as possible so please please please stick with me through this because this is important to me and my readers moving forward (will be getting proof once this is posted)

when i had started “the space between,” i had no intention of how well it would do. it ended up getting so much traction that i had been embarrassed of all my old works and ended up orphaning them and renaming my whole account to rebrand because i became so invested in making it the best that i could. around chapter 9-10(?) i started seeing how well it had been doing, so i wanted to find a beta reader/editor to make sure i maintained that. i had no interest in having someone i trusted or knew editing or reading for me at the time, because i don’t have any friends that even know i write so i definitely wasn’t comfortable with that, and was too embarrassed to try and reconnect with older beta readers from my works in different fandoms from like 2+ years ago., so i went looking through some subreddits and discord servers to connect with someone. in my desperation i had also offered to pay, which maybe landed me with the person i did making myself look like an idiot by including an incentive. the person i ended up working with was someone i had met on reddit, and spoken with them there and across discord, + also had their phone number as well (just for the paypal transaction later.) it was completely my fault for not checking with this person more throughly to have prevented this, but there is nothing i can do to change that now. i was comfortable with just sharing my ao3 account log-in with this person because they could edit my drafts as i went through the next few chapters (+ anything in my older ones) and could edit on the website itself, which was again also very stupid and contradictory of me trying to do the best i could for that work by sharing the publishing access to it. i started having my suspicions a few times when i noticed what had looked like prompts included near revisions i had mentioned, but i brushed it off because it looked similar to notes i sometimes leave myself/left them/they left afterwards (eg: Continue like this:). but i had never pointed it out because the person seemed genuine, and i literally had their phone number and multiple accounts we spoke across which made me trust them more, as well as the fact that they insisted i not pay them until i finished my last chapters. i also was grateful to have someone to help me write the scenes that i was as i never had written smut, which had been another reason i wanted advice on editing and remained thankful i had someone who was comfortable working with something that seemed so embarrassing/vulnerable. looking back, i definitely should have questioned their revisions more and prioritized keeping my work safe, but again, i cannot change that. i stopped contacting this person after i published the final chapter + sent payment, and changed my ao3 password. i had been very thorough about my stance on AI and prefaced it multiple times, but i was grateful enough to have gotten someone to work w in such a short time and a person who seemed genuine.

i saw this skin everyone has been talking about recently/ using to find claude in works, so i used it on my work work when i saw it earlier this morning and i cannot explain the feeling i had see the screen of my last chapters turn red. i wrote my whole freshman thesis on AI, and have been heavily and publicly against it for as long as i have known about it. i would have addressed this earlier, but i literally felt so sick about the whole thing i couldn’t even do anything about it. i got this post sent to me a couple of hours ago and it freaked me out so i repeated the last few chapters because i didn’t know what else to do, which again. Very stupid. but OP has mentioned that they have the original version saved so i guess that’s still there idrk

im still trying to figure out how to address this properly because i literally feel nauseous, but i had poured my heart and soul into that work. like literally so much that it had taken over my life for two months and i ended up failing one of my uni classes because i couldn’t work on anything else but “the space between” because it had literally taken over my life, and i have days straight of time on that doc. and knowing that happened just in the last few chapters where it would not have happened if i had not worked with that person. so again, i literally cannot explain how sick this is all making me feel.

im not sure how to go moving forward with that fic. i dont know if i should orphan or or delete it or rewrite it or what to do with it. i have not contacted that person since, and there is no overlap of that person in any other of my other fics so i want to make that VERY clear; i have never used AI. i will not use AI. i do not support AI in any means.

thank you to anyone who stuck to read this whole thing. i’m trying to go through to see what receipts of proof i have with that person that i can post. i know i have the DMs, paypal transaction, and im not sure if ao3 emails when you change your password but i will check for that as well.

i cannot change what happened and i understand if people do not believe me, but i am trying to be completely transparent to the most of my abilities and accept responsibility for what i let happen. im sorry to everyone who invested their time in this story and to everyone who feels disappointed or let down by this situation, but i want to reassure that will not happen again moving forward.